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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024286">A Selection Ceremony</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe'>Etnoe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Harem, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Exhibitionism, Impact Play, Mild Blood, Multi, Ritual Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:01:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,464</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The ceremony goes very wrong, and very right. That kind of thing comes naturally to Gamzee.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde &amp; Gamzee Makara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>AU Eldritchfuck Roseworld: Nice and Voluntary, Id Pro Quo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Selection Ceremony</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirradin/gifts">Mirradin</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the EFRW But Nice branch.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gamzee could stay.</p><p>He'd come to Earth for a garden party or two and the interviews that came with them; he'd come for as much of a goodbye as he could stand to give his friends. That had been what he owed, which he knew full well no matter how much he'd tried not to. A human would take him, as humans always accepted a troll's grand gesture of leaving behind the Empire before it seduced or spat them out first - but his brand of disastrousness would wait. Karkat and Feferi, blood bright and blood royal, and blood-hunted both, needed to go first. Humans were not supposed to pay attention to the detail of the hemospectrum beyond how they offered to dress you up, but what if, what if ... Before anything else, those two needed a place secured, for which they required diplomacy, decorum, prettiness.</p><p>Jank-assed, pan-addled, the essence of a clown-car crash by nature and by choice, Gamzee had not settled at their interview party until he found himself at the fringes of it. He had perched on statuary like they were carousel beasts and had spoken only to servers bearing plates of canapes, and he'd been at peace. Like the clouds before this gentle sun, the thought had passed by him that if he didn't go and find any friends to say goodbye to, that would actually be fine too.</p><p>Instead, Tavros and Karkat had got him with desperately hopeful words and grips around the arms, and the next thing he knew was that the two arbiters they favoured had smiles he could well believe to be sweet. The arbiters had barely asked him anything in his interview, and he had got...</p><p>Why, it was like getting a whole black-blooded judgebeast drawn out of a top hat, with a ringmaster tipping a wink the audience's way. A show fit to send everyone fleeing - and just look at them go.</p><p>"Equius, Equius, <em>it smells nice to humans</em>, I can't believe it!" Nepeta was a-clamber with excitement, her moirail and the garden furniture of their corner of the picnic all fair game. "You could sweat more!" </p><p>"I can kneel right and proper, I been readin' up since--" Eridan, defensive or excited or something else he didn't know he was. And for some reason Gamzee felt the temperature go up sharply in the light of this pale sun.</p><p>"Gauze! Gauze! Now is absolutely the time to dispense my full quantity of gauze, you stupid, inanimate and unconvinced technology," Kanaya told her Chastity Modus.</p><p>"No, really, the Adventurer's Club certified my whipping expertise with great—" from Aradia, giggles and elbowing from Harley. And that girl's name was an important one to have picked up, and maybe that, at least, made up in a scrap of a way for a lack of knowing a single thing about harem lore on this planet.</p><p>"I want input on that abdication-slash-escapee announcement, Feferi, and which outlets it's going to! While I'm at it, I also want my signature on it, and by on it, let me clarify that it should refer the reader to a visual announcement a mile high and emblazoned bright red across the pink of the moon—" And that was Karkat, featuring both his middle and most emphatic fingers, secure in certainty that he had escaped all danger that he'd been hatched to, so sure he had kept them all together, not even a word said about what kind of insult to impossible kindness might make some fool easy to send back to a lonely home...</p><p>"Well, John, having accepted a solid dozen new companions, we are finally blatantly scandalous as well as nouveau riche," said Rose, to the clink of glasses. "The latest arrivals on the scene and certainly the last to be worth knowing. Now we can strive for nothing but to be memorable."</p><p>Huh.</p><p>Why was it a lot easier to focus, all of a sudden?</p><p>Gamzee clasped his hands in a quick prayer and then sent a grin around the room at all his friends, including the ones he had yet to make. Then he went to bug Sollux out of looking uptight and panicky. No matter how good the guy said he was at it, feeling such things was assuredly no kind of fun.</p><p>*</p><p>They had one more night before it would be made final. A night for stealing away with regrets, or probably, more in keeping with the rules of the thing, for writing a note that politely declined an offer.</p><p>If only it had been a day. Karkat hadn't slept since Alternia, and trying to sleep when the sun went down didn't help him get any closer to it despite having been awake all day.</p><p>At least, Gamzee assumed that Karkat hadn't slept yet. There was makeup hiding the circles under his eyes that Gamzee was delighted to lend him a sponge and removal cream for. Since landing on Earth, Gamzee had kept himself scarce and had slept at a different hotel to the others; he was lucky that Karkat hadn't questioned why he trailed after him this time.</p><p>"And John and Rose have been doing great in their business so far—" Karkat was chattering with remarkably low volume, but speed to make up for it, and walking the length and breadth of the room with the rest of his redirected energy. "—there's a solid in for you, with all that weird entrepreneurial shit you pulled at the least excuse, right? I still need, but do not want an explanation for that 'dream sales' venture that had no right to work like it did, by the way. And Terezi, once she's refreshed her knowledge of the law around here, she'd be able to help them there too. It could all be really solid for us, I think, a real household along with all the most lurid fun I have spent a hopefully reasonable number of hours devising... So yeah, I mean, she'd be able to get them permits, act as a secretary, advise them, all that kind of thing. You think we could convince them to invest in art, and, bear with me here, also that Equius could serve as an appraiser? Evidence of my crumbling mind, I know, but he has proved that new facts can in fact wriggle their way...</p><p>"Gamzee." His long-suffering, patient sigh. "Are you trying to convince me that you know how to promptly follow orders? Because you don't need to follow my dramatic pacing all around the room, you know."</p><p>"But I've never seen you relaxed before, best friend."</p><p>Karkat flailed, claws waving. "This looks relaxed to you?" And then his arms dropped, and his shoulders, too, and his eyelids for a moment. The frown he wore was no less ferocious, but you couldn't expect miracles every single moment; certainly not anothe one, after they had found a safe home for him, and each and every one of them.</p><p>"It is a sight worth looking at closely."</p><p>Something in his smile, in the way he dared take Karkat's hand with a squeeze and a kiss, led to them sitting on the human bed - or so Gamzee flattered himself. They woke to the alarm Karkat had set, ready for the next step.</p><p>*</p><p>The ceremony of entangled fortunes started off with a clear symbol. Feferi had to be first, of course. She was the baddest of all big deals to settle her pretty self in a sprawl on expensive cushions.</p><p>John and Rose set her up so that she came in Earth-type royal garb. None of it was a wetsuit, but it was in all the highblood colours and gold, and white fur trim on her cloak.</p><p>Then she had to take all that off.</p><p>She stood on the stage that opened to a half-trim, half-wild plain, an audience of acolytes bowed back to her, and sat back on the grass to watch and comment and smile. Feferi had a delicious pout on as she got rid of the jingle of her jewellery, the trailing cloak, the elegant gown that she had to peel off her curves... and then came the things she had to put on: The collar. The higher heels. At last, bending forward with her legs spread, her fingertips to the points of her shoes, Rose could insert the vibrator.</p><p>A promise fulfilled and a tease begun, setting all the spectators to sighing and scuffling. Feferi's fingers clenched at the size of the thing, and she whimpered as Rose tested angles and ground it deeper into her nook. But never doubt: No flinching. She went to perch on the chaise longue to the side of the stage.</p><p>The master of ceremonies came to her, consulting a small, thick book with just one quick flick of the eyes while drawing a sign on her wrist.</p><p>She was taken. A note of song sounded out from all the acolytes.</p><p>Karkat, Equius, and Tavros went next, already stripped to bulge- and chest-framing harnesses because all three of them were set to melt if there was much time to anticipate what they were doing. There was a daze about Equius's eyes that was like looking in an old mirror to Gamzee, almost too familiar - his friend probably wasn't all there at the moment.</p><p>It made it easier for Gamzee to wander out after them. He found himself back inside the old feeling of excusing himself from his own nugbone more easily than he'd expected. Was he technically supposed to be waiting for his turn? Maybe. Until the end of the ceremony when there was hardly any time to do anything more, as every single other person he knew on this planet had proposed? He'd stopped paying attention.</p><p>There was nothing in his way to step on while he was feeling spaced out, so he walked on quiet feet behind Tavros, steady onwards to centre stage. Karkat didn't have to turn any kind of agonising sunset-red after all, and dodging that possibility made Gamzee grin. Maybe this was meant to be!</p><p>Then again: Nah. From the way that John froze as he saw which of them approached, Gamzee's vague memory that he was out here early was right.</p><p>"Ahaha!" John said, instead of laughing properly - "it seems we have a volunteer willing to demonstrate the end goal!"</p><p>The guy had to know something about the stage to recover the moment that way. He gestured theatrically at Gamzee and then grabbed a hand to drag him to the front. With strong Sir John Egbert hands settled on his hips and a flurry of smallcaps whispers shooting at his back, Gamzee did his best to pose. Oh, wait, maybe he should be shy - everyone else on stage would be. So he ducked his head away.</p><p>Gamzee's bulge had already emerged from behind its bone sheath, salaciously rich colour showing against the stark grey of his unclothed skin. The "cock cage" had already sprung the little metal trap that kept his bulge from retreating easily.</p><p>"Kneel for me!" John said, excellent drama to it. Gamzee sank down with his thighs splayed and his hands dangling over them to make another frame to fit his bulge into for the spectators.</p><p>He could hardly see them with the stage lights on him. He preferred to turn a smile to Equius, who was following his lead; then Tavros, kneeling with a smooth and strange move of his new prosthetics that Gamzee wanted to get to know; finally, Karkat, who had all kinds of fear and satisfaction in him. Why, Karkat smiled back.</p><p>The four of them made space for the next group when they were bid to.</p><p>Before the master of ceremonies could peep his way, Gamzee flashstepped to the other side of the stage. The song from the acolytes cut off falteringly when they saw he wasn't on the furnishings with the other four who'd done their thing, but John respectfully requested that the new harem members be sanctioned at once, as they'd proved willing, so they too were marked.</p><p>Gamzee followed Nepeta, Terezi, and Vriska on from the other side of the stage. It got the crowd all kinds of discombobulated. They could "ooh!" as much as they wanted, he thought, because Nepeta appreciated the would-be romance of being swept up in someone's arms before her first pussy-spanking. She went "Mrrrp!" and butted her head under his chin.</p><p>"You are allowed noise," Rose announced, to them and for the watchers to take note of. "You are allowed to try and get away. But you will take the ten hits that we negotiated."</p><p>Oh, but Nepeta yowled as her intimates got greener. There were stripes left on her skin halfway through from the stiff leather switch. And she yowled louder as she came, hips jerked up off the floor and a gush of slurry puddling on the floor below her.</p><p>Vriska got the other end the whole time. It had a <em>feather</em>. She didn't get hit at all, not really, and she cried with the frustration of it almost immediately, claws scraping audibly on the floor and Terezi holding her other hand tight. Terezi got the buds of her nook teased after each strike and shamelessly shifted into it, and into a few of the strikes, too.</p><p>Gamzee had to turn face-down to appreciate the strikes across his nook, or the cock cage got in the way. They could watch him shake in the pose, keeping himself up high almost like Feferi had in those heels, except he didn't have such dignity to keep him still. His knees knocked, his tongue slipped out, his elbows gave as the shock struck him through, lightning spread through him from the blood-heaviness of how ready he was to come.</p><p>Gods, pain. How could a mind dissolve and focus at once? Pain. How could something make so much sense all the way through, and afterwards? When there was nothing in his whole damned meat husk but that thing itself, growing more grand, and but a sliver of him, so ready to be lost some more.</p><p><em>Hold on</em>, brother, he told himself. No reason.</p><p>No, wait, there was one - he had other friends to accompany!</p><p>This time he winked at John before flashstepping again.</p><p>Eridan and Sollux pleased John with a blowjob tackled from two sides at once, and John was stern and twinkle-eyed about having Gamzee take care of them in turn, and no one taking care of Gamzee.</p><p>Rose got the idea too - Gamzee was allowed to serve as a clothing rack for the silk scarves with which Kanaya played with Aradia's airways, and he could be a bench when Aradia spanked Kanaya, but neither were allowed to do anything with him.</p><p>This time he sat eagerly and waited for the master of ceremonies to anoint him. He tied himself to his seat in order to show willing, taking a silk scarf he'd filched.</p><p>When next he and all his friends filed backstage to dress in the plain robes that the ceremony demanded next, Karkat grabbed him.</p><p>"Gamzee, dude. What the hell was that?"</p><p>"Do we have time for this, brother?" He leaned in to bump his forehead to Karkat's, enjoying being so close to his fully-flushed face. "We have our mother fucking speeches to tell at our brother and sister, solemn and true."</p><p>"Do you - you'd better know your speech, Gamzee! It's not going to be a cute fuck-up if you don't! It - dude, it was a favour that landed you here, please, please, <em>please</em>--"</p><p>The music outside stopped and cued them in. They separated to flurry into their robes while the others lined up to go back onstage.</p><p>Gamzee didn't remember one damned thing of the ritual he hadn't heard a word of, and it was not going to be a cute fuck-up. It was going to be hells of memorable.</p><p>*</p><p>"I would not seek to lie to these super-solid ninjas who aim to please themselves and my selves with all indulgence. I can't be bound to them and them alone as my masters. My lords of misrule have travelled along in my heart, all the way and time from the first home I had."</p><p>His friends stayed silent, all solemnity, but the guests got free in their disconcerted chatter - it seemed like manners did go out the window easily. Rose and John hadn't so much as raised a hand, never mind a tool, so their quality struck him as just fine.</p><p>That hitching breath, though, those overwhelmed tears ... aw, Karkat.</p><p>"My old gods have me in soul and they give me spirit. And so all that I can give my <em>new</em> gods, in kneeling and in begging, in open ears and readiness to dance in any direction desire wants to up and lay on a brother, is a body used up all sorts of ways they could dream. <em>Raw and right</em>."</p><p>John let out a whistle, as wide of eye as any that Gamzee could feel upon him. It was Rose that stepped down, and she looked a kind of delighted that heated Gamzee up without him meaning to be. It made him blink a lot and be unsure, strangely.</p><p>Her hand took its time about its grip. The way it pet his hair first made him squirm, parting his legs so that he could grind his nook on the platform with some better pressure. Once she got his neck snapped back - the pitched pull of a handful of follicles, the spreading ache that made his maw crack open - then it seemed important for him to be still.</p><p>"I want blood, Gamzee Makara."</p><p>"For such a pretty smile—" he gasped.</p><p>"And if that's just the start?"</p><p>He couldn't bow and had to settle for baring his throat, tipping further into the grip of her fist. He put his hands together in prayer and hoped she could see. As soon as she let him go he prostrated himself.</p><p>"You got whims, I will <em>provide</em>."</p><p>That was as it should be. It didn't matter what the official words were - though they were doing him a favour by inviting him to stay, it was still his own self that the favour was being done for and accepted by.</p><p>It was Karkat that stepped in to do it - him and his blunt teeth. That his bro could get pissy was no kind of a surprise even to him, but it did have Gamzee sheepish to score himself tears of pity and yet also a fresh hell of fury blazing in Karkat's eyes.</p><p>The kiss was but an exchange of breath at first, lips brushed against each other for an exquisite moment where the audience was silent, and Rose's hand light once again on Gamzee's hair. On Karkat's, too, he could see through slit eyes. Then Karkat received a pat and Gamzee another tight-gripped tug.</p><p>Their mouths sealed together and Karkat dug nails into his neck and jaw to direct him. Now to tilt his head back when he got sloppy-enthusiastic, now to crack his mouth wider open when he could be trusted with his tongue. Karkat knelt up to show him what was what, to make him forget about breathing anything aside from warmth and wet, and the dependable pain of Rose finding new ways to yank him around. And then a snarl, a threat that served to throttle him for the steps he'd taken away from the ritual path, so that Gamzee knew he had to freeze and do nothing but whimper as Karkat bit at his lips, his tongue, and dug his nails in.</p><p>The ache made the sting and blossoming bruises on his nook spark bright again, and he lost himself to a shaking and clenching.</p><p>Karkat whimpered and Gamzee's eyes snapped open. It was only that Karkat had been made to sit back on his haunches, though - and looking at his mouth purpled that way, oh, it was a sight of intimacy and audacity, fit to make a brother wonder at him and the world.</p><p>One finger trailed from above him to press for hardly a blink into Karkat's bow of an upper lip, and then flicked off a smear of blood.</p><p>"Mine now, if I might be so bold," Rose said, holding that finger up.</p><p>"For you and yours," Gamzee swore. "Each drop and each flinch."</p><p>"And so much more."</p><p>She bopped his nose. Gamzee went squint looking at the purple dot it left there.</p><p>Cautiously, tugging at her grip without wanting to get free, he leaned to the side so that he could settle his head against her thigh.</p><p>The master of ceremonies stepped in, book of binding opening in one hand, and gently tipped up his chin with the other.</p>
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